John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

"No," Kiever replied, "but you can get some on the plane. You'd better look through this," he added, and handed Leamas a British passport. It was made out in his name with his own photograph mounted in it, embossed by a deep-press Foreign Office seal running across the corner. It was neither old nor new; it described Leamas as a clerk, and gave his status as single. Holding it in his hand for the first time, Leamas was a little nervous. It was like getting married: whatever happened, things would never be the same again.

"What about money?" Leamas asked.

"You don't need any. It's on the firm."

It was cold that morning, the light mist was damp and gray, pricking the skin. The airport reminded Leamas of the war: machines, half hidden in the fog, waiting patiently for their masters; the resonant voices and their echoes, the sudden shout and the incongruous clip of a girl's heels on a stone floor; the roar of an engine that might have been at your elbow. Everywhere that air of conspiracy which generates among people who have been up since dawn—of superiority almost, from the common experience of having seen the night disappear and the morning come. The staff had that look which is informed by the mystery of dawn and animated by the cold, and they treated the passengers and their luggage with the remoteness of men returned from the front: ordinary mortals and nothing for them that morning.

Kiever had provided Leamas with luggage. It was a detail: Leamas admired it. Passengers without luggage attract attention, and it was not part of Kiever's plan to do that. They checked in at the airline desk and followed the signs to passport control. There was a ludicrous moment when they lost the way and Kiever was rude to a porter. Leamas supposed Kiever was worried about the passport—he needn't be, thought Leamas, there's nothing wrong with it.

The passport officer was a youngish little man with an Intelligence Corps tie and some mysterious badge in his lapel. He had a ginger mustache and a North Country accent which was his life's enemy.

"Going to be away for a long time, sir?" he asked Leamas.

"A couple of weeks," Leamas replied.

"You'll want to watch it, sir. Your passport's due for renewal on the thirty-first."

"I know," said Leamas.

They walked side by side into the passengers' waiting room. On the way Leamas said: "You're a suspicious sod, aren't you, Kiever?" and the other laughed quietly.

"Can't have you on the loose, can we? Not part of the contract," he replied.

They still had twenty minutes to wait. They sat down at a table and ordered coffee. "And take these things away," Kiever added to the waiter, indicating the used cups, saucers and ashtrays on the table.

"There's a trolley coming around," the waiter replied.

"Take them," Kiever repeated, angry again. "It's disgusting, leaving dirty dishes there like that."

The waiter just turned and walked away. He didn't go near the service counter and he didn't order their coffee. Kiever was white, ill with anger. "For Christ's sake," Leamas muttered, "let it go. Life's too short."

"Cheeky bastard, that's what he is," said Kiever.

"All right, all right, make a scene; you've chosen a good moment, they'll never forget us here."

The formalities at the airport at The Hague provided no problem. Kiever seemed to have recovered from his anxieties. He became jaunty and talkative as they walked the short distance between the plane and the customs sheds. The young Dutch officer gave a perfunctory glance at their luggage and passports and announced in awkward, throaty English, "I hope you have a pleasant stay in the Netherlands."

"Thanks," said Kiever, almost too gratefully, "thanks very much."

They walked from the customs shed along the corridor to the reception hall on the other side of the airport buildings. Kiever led the way to the main exit, between the little groups of travelers staring vaguely at kiosk displays of scent, cameras and fruit. As they pushed their way through the revolving glass door, Leamas looked back. Standing at the newspaper kiosk, deep in a copy of the Continental Daily Mail stood a small, froglike figure wearing glasses, an earnest, worried little man. He looked like a civil servant. Something like that.

A car was waiting for them in the parking lot, a Volkswagen with a Dutch registration, driven by a woman who ignored them. She drove slowly, always stopping if the lights were amber, and Leamas guessed she had been briefed to drive that way and that they were being followed by another car. He watched the side view mirror, trying to recognize the car but without success. Once he saw a black Peugeot with a CD number, but when they turned the corner there was only a furniture van behind them. He knew The Hague quite well from the war, and he tried to work out where they were heading. He guessed they were traveling northwest toward Scheveningen. Soon they had left the suburbs behind them and were approaching a colony of villas bordering the dunes along the seafront.

Here they stopped. The woman got out, leaving them in the car, and rang the front doorbell of a small cream-colored bungalow which stood at the near end of the row. A wrought-iron sign hung on the porch with the words LE MIRAGE in pale blue Gothic script. There was a notice in the window which proclaimed that all the rooms were taken.

The door was opened by a kindly, plump woman who looked past the driver toward the car. Her eyes still on the car, she came down the drive toward them, smiling with pleasure. She reminded Leamas of an old aunt he'd once had who beat him for wasting string.

"How nice that you have come," she declared; "we are so pleased that you have come!"

They followed her into the bungalow, Kiever leading the way. The driver got back into the car. Leamas glanced down the road which they had just traveled; three hundred yards away a black car, a Fiat perhaps, or a Peugeot, had parked. A man in a raincoat was getting out.

Once in the hall, the woman shook Leamas warmly by the hand. "Welcome, welcome to Le Mirage. Did you have a good journey?"

"Fine," Leamas replied.

"Did you fly or come by sea?"

"We flew," Kiever said; "a very smooth flight." He might have owned the airline.

"I'll make your lunch," she declared, "a special lunch. I'll make you something specially good. What shall I bring you?"

"Oh, for God's sake," said Leamas under his breath, and the doorbell rang. The woman went quickly into the kitchen; Kiever opened the front door.

He was wearing a mackintosh with leather buttons. He was about Leamas' height, but older. Leamas put him at about fifty-five. His face had a hard, gray hue and sharp furrows; he might have been a soldier. He held out his hand.

"My name is Peters," he said. The fingers were slim and polished. "Did you have a good journey?"

"Yes," said Kiever quickly, "quite uneventful."

"Mr. Leamas and I have a lot to discuss; I do not think we need to keep you, Sam. You could take the Volkswagen back to town."

Kiever smiled. Leamas saw the relief in his smile.

"Good-bye, Leamas," said Kiever, his voice jocular. "Good luck, old man." Leamas nodded, ignoring Kiever's hand.

"Good-bye," Kiever repeated and let himself quietly out of the front door.

Leamas followed Peters into a back room. Heavy lace curtains hung at the window, ornately frilled and draped. The windowsill was covered with potted plants—great cacti, tobacco plant and some curious tree with wide, rubbery leaves. The furniture was heavy, pseudo-antique. In the center of the room was a table with two carved chairs. The table was covered with a rust-colored counterpane more like a carpet; on it before each chair was a pad of paper and a pencil. On a sideboard there was whisky and soda. Peters went over to it and mixed them both a drink.